Well, that didn’t take long. Barely two weeks after Norbert Dentressangle began raising funds, sorry, trading on the NYSE Euronext London stock exchange it’s flexed its acquisitive muscles again. This time picking up Franco-Russian freight forwarder Daher Group.
It’s not the first time ND has snapped up freight forwarding interests in emerging markets. In October it bought Sri Lankan conglomerate John Keells Group – at €8m (£6.96m) p.a. much smaller in turnover terms than Daher, which has an annual turnover of €80m – but giving ND a foothold in South Asia. Now it is targeting Eastern Europe and beyond.
Daher might have eight offices in France, making the fit with ND manifeste: chief executive Hervé Montjotin (pictured left), admits as much himself: “ This gives us a significant, solid base in France, a key market in which we foresee a wide range of opportunities for commercial synergies with our group’s transport and logistics activities. It will also improve the profitability of our freight forwarding business.”
But it is the three offices in Russia that is where the real action is. Some 103 specialist employees in Moscow, St Petersberg and Yekaterinburg (it’s in the middle near Kazakstan) who can get round some rather tricky customs clearance laws are gold-dust, as is a client base in the aviation, automotive, chemical and luxury goods sectors.
Adding €80m of turnover to ND Freight Forwarding’s €220m of sales will give the division some clout as well. It is small compared to its transport (€2bn in 2012) and logistics (€1.78bn in 2012) interests, but growing, and growing in the right areas.
ND needs to grow this division substantially if it is to put itself in the same bracket as the likes of the world’s leading freight-forwarders - DHL Global Forwarding had a turnover of €15.6bn in 2012 - but if it sees the German giant as its natural competition now then those competing with ND for contracts had better take note.